Prince Edward and wife Sophie, who celebrated her landmark 60th birthday last month, will begin a six-day visit to Nepal to celebrate the country’s close ties with the UK

The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh will head off on an official royal tour this week to a far-flung destiantion.

Edward and Sophie, often dubbed the royals’ ‘secret weapon,’ are set to arrive in Nepal for a six-day stay to celebrate its close ties with the UK. The couple will take in the beauty of the Himalayan nation when they travel to the village of Ghandruk, perched in the foothills with views of the Annapurna range, during their first ever trip to the country in Southern Asia.

Sophie, who celebrated her milestone 60th birthday a fortnight ago, and her husband, the King’s youngest brother, will also attend the Attestation Parade for new Gurkha recruits at the British Gurkha Camp in the lakeside city of Pokhara. It marks young Nepali service personnel formally joining the British Army, and celebrates the long tradition of collaboration between the two nations.

The couple in Malta last year ( 
Image:
PA)
During their stay, the Edinburghs will also meet organisations providing healthcare services and support to survivors of trafficking and gender-based violence. Sophie is a champion of the UN’s Women, Peace and Security Agenda, and in October, during a trip to Malta, took part in a discussion with members of Malta’s police force and human rights directorate about supporting victims of human trafficking.

The couple will meet young people taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh International Award, and women’s rights activists and those campaigning for a more equal and inclusive society. Buckingham Palace said: “The visit will celebrate the close ties between the UK and Nepal, and reinforce shared interests including youth opportunity, healthcare, equality for women and girls, and conservation and biodiversity.”

Over the past year, the duke and duchess have cemented their roles as dependable figures in the slimmed-down working monarchy when The Firm was left further stretched due to the King and the Princess of Wales’s major health troubles. The King visited Nepal in 1998, as Prince of Wales, and his and Edward’s parents Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, travelled there in 1986.

The late Queen and Philip also visited Nepal in 1961, when they both rode on elephants to watch a tiger shoot arranged for them by King Mahendra of Nepal in a jungle near Kathmandu. Philip was unable to join in with the shoot because of an infected finger. King George V was pictured tiger shooting in Nepal in 1912. But the last major royal visit to the now-republic was by the Duke of Sussex.

Prince Harry made an official trip to Nepal in 2016 to mark the bicentenary of the Nepal-UK relationship – four years before he stepped down as a senior working royal. Harry travelled to regions affected by the devastating 2015 earthquake, and extended his five-day trip to help a disaster response charity rebuild an earthquake-destroyed school. Edward and Sophie’s overseas tour takes place from February 4 to February 9.